A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  Few would admit they were disappointed, but even fewer would claim the crusade’s tangible results had exceeded their expectations. On his last night in the Garden, Graham said, “I believe that history will say that 1957 was the year of spiritual awakening,” but it was clear he had not turned New York upside down. “New York probably looks the same,” he admitted. “The crowds still throng Times Square. There are still people going to nightclubs. There’s still lots of crime in the city. Yes, but there is one difference. One tremendous difference! That difference is in the lives of thousands of men and women who will never be the same.” The claim, though difficult to document in a statistically satisfying way, was rendered quite plausible by the thousands of letters that poured into BGEA’s Minneapolis headquarters claiming just such a profound change as a direct result of responding to the invitation Graham offered. In the years to follow, this would become the orthodox interpretation of crusade results. It would not satisfy critics. It would disappoint many supporters, who had worked and hoped for more. But it would be enough to keep the gospel locomotive rolling on down the line.

  15

  Reaping the Whirlwind

  As expected, the New York crusade made the breach with the Fundamentalists permanent. Early in 1958, John R. Rice, the Bob Joneses (an equally fractious Bob junior had joined his father’s battle with Billy) and a number of lesser evangelists signed a pledge never to accept meetings sponsored by non-orthodox groups. Graham not only ignored this show of purity but offended his critics even more deeply by courting and receiving new levels of approval for his May 1958 crusade in the Cow Palace in San Francisco. The crusade received the endorsement of both the Oakland and San Francisco Council of Churches, the Episcopal Diocese of California, and the Presbytery of San Francisco, and enjoyed the participation of numerous other non-Evangelical churches as well. Some extreme liberals took the usual potshots, with the usual lack of effect. Several dozen Fundamentalist pastors, mostly Baptists, opposed and attacked the crusade, but their efforts attracted such meager support that in the words of one observer, they “became quiescent.” Clearly, Graham’s decision to occupy the middle ground had been a successful one. Christianity Today said of the San Francisco crusade, “The great central segment of Protestantism was committed to a mass evangelistic effort as never before. . . . There was a polarization of extremes; many of those opposed at the beginning were more so at the ending. Yet in the center, there seems to have taken place a wonderful warming and softening of hearts. . . . A real secret of Billy Graham’s power was manifest—his ability to bring believers into touch with each other by omitting the things which divide them.”

  For a brief period, Graham attempted to repair, or at least to justify, the breach with the Fundamentalists. In a twelve-page open letter released during the San Francisco crusade, he urged his critics to realize that “many men are mistakenly called ‘liberal’ or ‘modernist’ by uninformed Evangelicals. I have found in my contacts that hundreds of men are warm, Godly men who hold to the essentials of the Christian faith but who for various reasons do not want to be identified with modern-day Evangelicalism, its organizations and institutions. . . . We should be extremely careful that we do not become as the Pharisees of old, thinking we have a ‘corner’ on the gospel.” The spiritual defects of extreme liberalism, he warned, are no more odious than those that cause the “bitterness, jealousy, rancor, division, strife, hardness, a seeking after revenge, and vindictiveness that characterizes a few fundamentalists.” Apart from this one effort, Graham restrained himself and responded to the long vitriolic letters he received from McIntire and Jones with no more than brief notes. “I soon learned there was no way I could answer them,” he recalled. “But I’d always write back and say, ‘Thank you for your letter. I’ve noted its contents and God bless you,’ or something to that effect.” He could not recall ever meeting Carl McIntire, but he did make one attempt to effect a reconciliation with Dr. Bob. While meeting informally in Birmingham, Alabama, with a group of twenty or so men who had fallen out of favor with Jones, Graham learned that Jones, who had been to nearby Dothan to inspect a statue of himself that he had recently commissioned, was staying in the same hotel. Graham asked his old adversary if he could call on him in his room: “I wanted to tell him that I still loved him and would answer any question he had about my ministry. It wasn’t an organized meeting; some of us just came in to visit. I remember Dr. Bob was in bed, and he was as nervous as a cat.” One participant recalled that Graham greeted Jones warmly and told him he was “looking great.” Instead of returning the compliment, Jones harrumphed, “You’re on your way down, Billy.” Graham said, “If that’s the way God wants it, then it’s settled.” The reason, Jones said, was because “your converts don’t last.” Graham turned the other cheek: “I don’t have any converts. I have never led anybody to Christ. Missionaries can say they have done that; I can’t. There are so many factors—prayer, Bible classes, pastors, hard work by lots of people. I come along and point to the door. I can’t claim any as mine.” Graham’s self-effacing responses fell on stony ground. “We’re taking over evangelism in America, Billy,” Jones announced, “Jack Shuler is going to be the man now. I know, because I trained him.” Eventually, the men in the room shook hands and prayed together, but the hoped-for reconciliation did not occur. When Jones died a few years later, Bob Junior took the trouble to send T. W. Wilson a telegram informing him that neither he nor, by clear implication, any of Graham’s colleagues would be welcome at the funeral. “Dr. Bob had a terrific philosophy,” Graham observed years later, “but he didn’t live up to it. He said, if a hound dog barks for Jesus, then I’ll be for him,’ but when I came along and was the hound dog, he wasn’t for me. . . . I suspect it was a little like Saul and David. Saul had slain his thousands and David his ten thousands. But I don’t want to be judgmental. I believe Dr. Bob loved the Lord.” He paused for a moment, then said, “It shows me how to act as an older man.”

  The loss of Fundamentalist support disappointed Graham, but he and his New Evangelical colleagues had clearly won the war, and he had emerged as the most prominent figure in a revitalized national social movement. Harold Ockenga, who could legitimately claim to be the father of this movement, explicitly identified Graham as “the spokesman of the convictions and ideals of the New Evangelicalism.” Some Evangelicals remained wary, fearful that worldly success in the form of larger numbers and popular recognition might corrupt their purity. The Moody Monthly, for example, which had regularly extolled Graham’s triumphs, omitted all mention of the San Francisco crusade and maintained a cautious attitude toward the evangelist for another four or five years. This reticence, however, was more than offset by Charles Fuller’s naming Graham to the board of Fuller Seminary in 1958, thus forging a visible bond between the leading evangelists of two generations. In retaliation, Bob Jones took Fuller’s Old Fashioned Revival Hour program off WMUU.

  If some Evangelicals worried that success might spoil their young champion, others delighted in his triumphs and basked in the respectability he had won for their movement. When newspaper and television reporters asked his opinions, he articulated Evangelical beliefs and values in a manner that made them plausible, perhaps even convincing, to mainstream America. When talk-show hosts interviewed him, Evangelicals appreciated that one of their own was accorded the same respect enjoyed by movie stars and sports heroes and famous authors and prominent politicians. When the Gallup poll repeatedly listed him among the “most admired men” in the nation, as it had every year since 1955, they felt their own judgments about him had been confirmed by the populace as a whole. And when Ralph Edwards retold his story on This Is Your Life, with Richard Nixon as a participant, they felt their own lives—-which were, after all, not radically different from his—had been declared legitimate and worthy of honor.

  Graham took his celebrity seriously. Not only did he persist in his determination to keep his life free of recognizable stain, but he also showed remarkable grace a
nd apparently indefatigable patience toward those who encountered him in more private circumstances. To protect himself against being nibbled into fragments by well-wishers and autograph seekers and desperate souls who sought his ministrations, he seldom ate in well-known restaurants or took the long walks that had been a lifelong habit. During crusades he spent most of his unscheduled time in his hotel room, at the homes of friends, or on the golf course, which offered him a chance to relax, socialize, and get some exercise without constant interruptions. Beavan and other associates served as gatekeepers, winnowing those who sought an audience to a manageable few and politely attempting to discourage strangers from accosting him unannounced. Graham wanted and needed these hedges against constant intrusion, but whenever an admirer or supplicant breached the thin protective barrier, his long habit of wanting to please overpowered any impulse toward resentment. Lane Adams recalled an airplane flight during which “the copilot, the engineer, all the stewardesses, and at least half the passengers at some time got up and came forward into the section where we were and said, ‘I don’t want to bother you, Mr. Graham, but I just have to shake your hand.’ Billy was exhausted and was sitting by the window, hoping to get a little rest, but he always stood up and shook their hand. He bumped his head on the overhead compartment nearly every time, but each time he acted just thrilled to meet them and to listen to their inane comments. Finally, the captain came back and said, ‘We’d like to show you what the cockpit of a DC-7 looks like.’ He said, ‘I’d love that.’ Later, I said, ‘Be honest with me. How many cockpits of DC-7’s have you seen?’ He said, ‘I’ve lost count. But I didn’t want to disappoint him.’ He had probably been in planes the pilot had never seen, but that’s just the way Billy is.”

  Celebrity impinged on the Grahams’ family life as well. Their mountainside manse was hard to find, and thoughtful neighbors learned not to give directions to curious pilgrims, but some inevitably made their way up the narrow, steep road to the house, where they knocked to ask for directions, pretending to be lost, or just wandered around in the front yard, hoping to get a glimpse of the famous evangelist or some member of his family. Ruth tended to ignore them. If Billy happened to be home, she seldom informed him they had visitors; if he spotted them, he often went outside to greet them and chat for a few minutes. Eventually, however, he agreed to the installation of a security fence with electronic gates and acquired two German shepherd guard dogs, Belshazzar and Samson, whose alleged viciousness seems never to have been put to a definitive test. Ruth understood that she could do little to protect her husband from his own gregariousness, but she steadfastly refused to expose her children to public gaze. They were not available to make comments—charming, revealing, or merely childlike—to inquiring reporters. They were not trotted out on crusade platforms to give their personal testimony or to tell adoring crowds what a wonderful man their father was. And they were subjected to a rather stern and consistent discipline at home. GiGi observed that “because she had full-time help, Mother didn’t get upset about dirty clothes or little things like that. But she was strict, and she did spank us. I got spanked nearly every day. Franklin, too. Anne didn’t seem to need it. She had those great big blue eyes that filled up with tears, and Mother’s heart would melt. Also, I was usually the instigator of the trouble anyway. Mother was fair. She was particularly strict on moral issues, and respect for adults was a moral issue for her. My son calls me ‘Dude.’ My mother would not have allowed that. But she had a great sense of humor, and we had a lot of fun. I have no memories of a screaming mother.” Ruth would be pleased at that memory, since she sometimes worried that she was becoming shrewish. In one diary entry, she reflected, “The children misbehave. I reprimand them more sharply—more probably, peevishly. The very tone of the voice irritates them. (I know because if it were used on me it would irritate me.) They answer back, probably in the same tone. I turn on them savagely. (I hate to think how often. And how savage a loving mother can be at times.) And I snap, ‘Don’t you speak to your mother like that. It isn’t respectful.’ Nothing about me—actions, tone of voice, etc.—commanded respect. It doesn’t mean I am to tolerate sass or back talk. But then I must be very careful not to inspire it either.”

  When Billy was home, which was less than half the time, much of Ruth’s disciplinary regimen went out the window. “Mother would have us in a routine,” GiGi recalled. “She monitored our TV watching, made us do our homework, and put us to bed at a set time. Then, when Daddy was home, he’d say, ‘Oh, let them stay up and watch this TV show with me,’ or he’d give us extra spending money for candy and gum. Mother always handled it with grace. She never said, ‘Well, here comes Bill. Everything I’m trying to do is going to be all messed up.’ She just said, ‘Whatever your Daddy says is fine with me.’ We just slipped in and out of two different routines. As a mother, I look at it with wonder now, but it wasn’t an issue. It was just two routines.” It was also a different routine for Ruth. “They were always very affectionate,” GiGi noted. “Whenever he was at home, they were always hugging or holding hands, or he’d have her sitting in his lap. They mutually adored one another, and it was very evident. They still do.”

  GiGi offered a possible explanation of her father’s more relaxed approach. “Once, he disciplined me for something I did. I don’t even remember what it was about, but we had some disagreement in the kitchen. I ran up the stairs, and when I thought I was out of range, I stomped my feet. Then I ran into my room and locked my door. He came up the stairs, two at a time it sounded like, and he was angry. When I finally opened the door, he pulled me across the room, sat me on the bed, and gave me a real tongue-lashing. I said, ‘Some dad you are! You go away and leave us all the time!’ Immediately, his eyes filled with tears. It just broke my heart. That whole scene was always a part of my memory bank after that. I realized he was making a sacrifice too. But it does seem like he didn’t discipline us much after that.”

  Over time, Ruth also became more flexible, reducing the number of her demands on the children to those she felt were essential. She claimed to have obtained some of her most effective child-rearing techniques from a dog-training manual whose directives included keeping commandments simple and at a minimum, seeing to it that all commands were obeyed, rewarding obedience with praise, and being consistent. Even then, GiGi found it difficult to stay in line. According to Ruth, her eldest daughter “tried harder to be good than anyone—but couldn’t.” Once, after a day in which she had been a particular trial, she asked at bedtime, “Mommy, have I been good enough today to go to heaven?” Ruth wrote in her diary, “Now how much should I impress on her Salvation by Grace when really for a child of her disposition one could be tempted to think salvation by works would be more effective on her behavior?” Whatever her faults, GiGi did display a talent for practical theology. Ruth once caught her slapping docile Anne on the cheek, insisting that she had a duty to turn the other for equal assault. On another occasion, to resolve an argument among the three girls over ownership of pictures cut from the TV Guide, Anne and Bunny prayed and decided they should burn all the pictures rather than let them become a source of conflict. GiGi countered by announcing that Jesus would not mind if they kept the better pictures. In 1958, when a fifth child, Ned (a contraction of Nelson Edman, after Nelson Bell and former Wheaton president V. Raymond Edman), was born, GiGi, just shy of her thirteenth birthday, was shipped off to Hampden-Dubose boarding school in Florida. T.W. and Grady Wilson had both sent their children to the school, and GiGi’s best friend was going, which made the decision seem attractive, but GiGi admitted she never adjusted well and “cried for four years,” adding that “when Anne went away and cried for a few days, they let her come back home, but I had to stay all four years. I didn’t like it, I was scared, and I missed my family, but the Lord led them, and I can’t thank him enough now. I married young, and it was great preparation time for me. The Lord knew.”

  Whatever Billy Graham’s private feelings about fame, and even hi
s most loyal and admiring friends acknowledge he does not find it entirely onerous, he instinctively understood its value to his ministry. He also understood that his ties to the Eisenhower-Nixon administration were his optimum public credential, and he worked assiduously to maintain them. In public he continued to insist that “I don’t think politics is part of my work. My work is winning persons for Christ. I follow [politics] as closely as I do religion, but I never take sides.” In private he continued to act like a Republican strategist. In December 1957 he told Nixon, “I think your political stock is extremely high, although I fear there are many factors working against any Republican being elected in 1960. Senator Kennedy is getting a fantastic buildup in certain elements of the press. He would indeed be a formidable foe. Contrary to popular opinion, when the chips are down, I think the religious issue would be very strong and might conceivably work in your behalf.” A few months later, he observed that “there is a growing possibility of a split deep within Democratic ranks on the race issue. Therefore, I think there is every reason for at least mild optimism.”

  Graham’s critics not only scoffed at his claims to neutrality but explicitly charged him with cozying up to the White House as a way of boosting his own image and stature. Billy wrestled inwardly with both critiques, probably recognizing the elements of truth in each and attempting to convince himself as well as others that they were not valid. In a letter asking Nixon to address a Presbyterian meeting, he noted that he turned down most requests to intercede with the President or Vice-President lest he be accused of exploiting their friendship but justified this exception on the grounds that “it would give you an excellent platform to say some of the things you would like to say along moral and spiritual lines.” In similar fashion, just as he had importuned Truman to show up at a service during the 1952 Washington crusade, he had asked Eisenhower on several occasions to make an appearance at Madison Square Garden, venturing that “I am convinced that if you visited Madison Square Garden some evening in August, it would become one of the most historic events of your administration and would leave an indelible impression on the minds and hearts of millions, not only in this country but abroad.” To his disappointment, the President passed up the chance to make history.